FXSTD – Alternative Energy Center

By: Michael Page
Government subsidies are killing us without us even being aware of it. U.S. government subsidies to individual and co-op farmers are allowing foods to be produced which nutritional science clearly shows to be detrimental to our health. Political forces are at play while America's health is being ignored and destroyed.

If you drive through Iowa on an interstate freeway and look to your left, you'll see corn fields for as far as the eye can see. Typically, if you look to the right, you'll see soybean fields for as far as you can see. The following year, if you were drive through you would see a switch where soybeans would be on the left and corn fields on the right. Each year, the farmers alternate fields.

Why are corn and soybeans the predominant foods being grown? Because U.S. Government subsidies make it far more profitable for farmers grow them. If they were to grow other crops such as peas, wheat, barley, etc, they would unable to compete in the open market with these crops and risk failure as an enterprise.

Corn and soybeans are subsidized because they are popular political foods. Corn is used predominantly from these fields to produce ethanol, an energy source touted to help reduce our dependency on foreign oil. The excess corn is then used to produce corn oil and sweeteners such as corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. By doing so, the government is helping the farmers to compete in the open market and by extension producing a cheap source of sweetener for other food manufacturers. While many in Washington may feel that this is a help to everyone, it puts our health at grave risk.

Packaged food manufacturers from cereal makers to candy bar makers benefit from a cheap source of sweetener. This in turn decreases overall cost of these foods in the marketplace; an apparent win/win. However, nutritional research shows that these cheap sweeteners and cheap oils are putting our health in peril. The over-consumption of low nutritional value sweeteners and partially hydrogenated oils which are found in these cheap manufactured food items wreck havoc on our nutritional and biological systems.

High fructose corn sweeteners are almost single-handedly responsible for diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and Syndrome X which are all prevalent problems in our health care system today. While these subsidies are definitely responsible for lower food costs, many would argue the food produced is not food but junk food.

Inadvertently, the U.S. taxpayer unknowingly financially supports the demise of their own health. An over-abundance of high glycemic index foods such as high fructose corn syrups causes a reactive blood sugar spike, insulin spike, and then hypoglycemia. The lower blood sugar phase causes you to feel famished causing you to look for more sugary foods to consume -- the cycle starts over. This leads to insulin resistance and then to diabetic or pre-diabetic states.

The health solution is obvious: stop eating the high fructose corn syrup. However, since the subsidies continue, the food choices for most Americans in their local supermarket make it costly and difficult to purchase healthy food. And so, for the vast majority of Americans, they continue this cycle of poor food choices.

The political solution is not so obvious: stop subsidizing poor food choices. With the pressure most lawmakers feel to help the "average American" and especially the American Farmer, it is unlikely this most appropriate solution will be chosen.